


Hard for Me to Say What's Right

by larkingstock



Series: connect the dots [4]
Category: Justified
Genre: ...at least compared to everyone ~else~ under that roof that night, F/M, Friends With Benefits returns!, featuring excellent decision-making, off-duty stealth sex at Winona's, shhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 02:00:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkingstock/pseuds/larkingstock
Summary: Bodyguarding (or nanny-ing or whatever they're calling it) at Winona's, no one's dead (yet), so Tim and Rachel steal an off-duty moment (or three) for themselves.





	Hard for Me to Say What's Right

**Author's Note:**

> _Oh, and just so you're not confused, I am now going to go to Winona's. Check in on her. Unless of course that's against the rules.  
>  No the only rule is, you don't ditch me in a damn convenience store. And I'm not tellin' Art, by the way, because that'd be my ass too. So yeah, let's go see your ex-wife, girlfriend, whatever it is we're callin' her._
> 
> _Whatever. Listen, I take my orders from Art, which means I'm gonna be here unless he says otherwise. I will however take you up on that sleep. I'm assuming you two could handle the night watch?  
>  I'ma go to sleep too. I'll relieve you in four hours._
> 
> \--2.11 Full Commitment
> 
> What's the point of feeling like you're in _The Big Chill_ if no one even goes upstairs with a good buddy and gets it on?
> 
> Though, as far as music goes, the fic title (and Rachel's quote in the fic) is but of course from Prince's [Gett Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f4BwQFF-Os). (Just assume Tim looked it up later and went down a bit of a youtube refresher rabbit hole. Starting with Cream, maybe, a few times. :))

It doesn't occur to Tim until after he knocks, this might be taken the wrong way.

"Come in."

But on the other hand, maybe it would have been weirder not to have come up to the guest room. They haven't been in exactly this kind of stake-out situation before, but a week or two ago--before they fucked, and Rachel told him she needed everything to go back to normal--this is probably what _normal_ would have looked like. Instead of what _booty call_ would have looked like. Though with the net relational weirdness being generated between just the three other people under this roof, he's having trouble believing this could count as barely a blip on the radar, no matter what.

So he squares his shoulders, and opens the door, and discovers he's dead wrong about that.

Rachel just glances over at him standing there with his gear, before going back to wiping some bit of tissue over her face, seated at the small vanity table, elegant practiced sweeps, removing makeup. She's got a small colorful scarf thing tied up around her head, neatly tucking all her hair out of sight, a modest white tank clinging to her tits and mini grape-purple terrycloth shorts hugging her hips. Not one piece of it matches, nothing calculated--or sexy-lingerie-pinup--about it, just a woman not half-assing a full night's sleep, and it immediately challenges the sight of her wearing just his shirt for one of the top spots in his favorite images of her.

He swallows.

A week or two back, he'd still have enjoyed the visual no doubt, because Rachel is fucking _gorgeous_ and no man in his right mind is going to miss that. And it's not like he doesn't appreciate the meticulous pantsuit coordinations she wears at the office--or pinups of women in lingerie, for that matter. But the quietly domestic invitation of her, sitting there all round perfect curves in the soft light of the bedside lamps, would...be barely a blip on the radar, before he got on with camping down for as much shut-eye as he could get in the hours he had. It'd be just one more index card, more pleasant than most, scoped from an easy mental distance and filed away. It wouldn't be a goddamn siren song, calling him close, to reach out, to run his fingers over her warm smooth skin, her bare shoulder, down her arm...

Yeah. Normal is not happening.

"Uh," he says, instead, and she rolls her eyes.

"Are you coming in, or what?"

So she really is pissed about the thing downstairs. "I wasn't sure..."

"Fine, sleep standing in the doorway, then."

"It's just four hours. I was only gonna--sleeping bag on the floor, it's--"

"For God's sake, Tim." She finishes up and spins around, up off the chair with a flash of her eyes. "There's space on the bed. Now come in or get the hell out, because I'm going on 38 hours no sleep and this conversation is fucking boring."

Well when she puts it like that.

He comes in, unloads his shit on the floor and bedside table, his phone alarm set four hours from now and his sidearm close within reach, and then he's shaking his sleeping bag out onto the double bed, the side closest to the door, suddenly not sure that spending another night on carpet wouldn't be the better option over lying on a bed with Rachel again--let alone Rachel in that getup--trying to get himself to sleep. This carpet in Douchenozzle Gary's suburban sinkhole of money looks pretty damn cushy. Miles better than the raggedy questionable-smelling shit in Raylan's motel room.

"So this morning. Let me guess, your boyfriend slipped out on you?"

Okay, now he's really got a problem. One that's got nothing to do with how she instantly and correctly interprets his lack of response for confirmation, and everything to do with being in a closed space with Rachel not just in that getup, but so tired and cussword-cranky with him that she'll just pop off and give him a hard time for it. He needs that to be the only thing that's getting hard, but that's been kind of a losing battle from the moment he spontaneously offered to loan her his penis and it's only getting...harder.

He turns away from her, drags his shirt off, and after a second of deliberation his belt too. The heavy black pants are staying very, very on.

"You found him again," Rachel continues, certain in her speculation even though he's resolutely ignoring it, "--which I guess only goes to show Art was right to pick you for Raylan Detail--and now you boys are having a little lovers' tiff."

Tim was intending to stealth straight to the sleeping bag, but he turns back only to find she's placed herself squarely in the way. He's not the tallest guy around but she's short as hell in her bare feet, on level with his bare chest, which is the first moment he realizes that when he took his shirt off, his undershirt had kinda gone with it. His dog tags too, just like last time. He'd been so focused, that night, on getting _her_ out of her clothes he hadn't even noticed them go, all shed at once. Now he's all too aware and all too naked, exposed with her standing there, zeroed onto him with her hands planted on the grape-colored curve of her hips, her eyes overhot and belligerent with lack of sleep. Her unbelievably, painfully kissable lips set hard at him. _Demanding_. "How do you know he's not going to go running off again while we sleep?...Please tell me you're not just taking his word for it."

The words _while we sleep_ go fizzing across his misfiring neurons, and he doesn't know what to do with how it only somehow makes everything spark _better_ , that she really is only talking about them sleeping here...together. The night she spent in his bed, he slept better than...he can ever maybe remember, but he'd put that down to the knockout-great sex, for obvious reasons. Jesus Christ, and he'd thought her confession of _flirting and damp panties_ last week had him in a bad way, what the fuck is wrong with him. "That's his woman down the hall, his watch on guard to keep her safe. You think he's goin' anywhere?"

Rachel's eyes narrow, a grudging little _hmmm_ that contains entire sentences of meaning, and Tim's near biting his tongue off, not to make some insinuation she's acting jealous. Some joke about how she can be his boyfriend if she wants. Fuck him, she only just split with her husband, she doesn't want complications at work, and whether she'd admit it or not, she's still adjusting and dealing from her first kill, _fuck him_ , she doesn't need this shit from him. It wasn't but ten minutes ago she was just zoning out next to him on the sofa, the soft close warmth of her body quieting his own mind too, even more than the beer. After all Raylan's _juvenile fucking bullshit_ in the last twenty-four hours, just even having Rachel around felt like a gift, and that was before she plunked herself down not two inches from his side and didn't move all evening.

Tim would very much like to go back to that state. Or at least get past her to the bed, and himself into the sleeping bag, before she notices how much that state has gone and changed. Unfortunately, placing hands on her to move her out of his way right now would be supremely counterproductive.

"Anything else you need?" he asks witheringly.

He realizes his mistake not an instant before Rachel's eyes dip, right down his body, and if that didn't finish the job of giving him a real goddamn hard time, the way she lifts them back up to look at him with one eyebrow arched high sure would.

He closes his eyes for a second. This hasn't been a day of wins for Deputy Dumbass Tim Gutterson. "I didn't mean it like that." Opening his eyes, she's still just standing there, looking at him expressionlessly. "I--if this's uncomfortable for you, I can go--"

She's already shrugging, completely uninterested, going back to tidy away her makeup stuff.

So, he guesses that's just that, so after another moment he goes too, sits on the side of the bed, and starts to remove his boots. He doesn't think the current level of threat alert is quite at sleeping with them on, although for the prospect of ex-military hitmen crashing the big shiny living room windows down there, he'll leave his socks on. He spares a thought for all the poor bastards out there struggling bein' back, not having Raylan Givens to work with--maybe he can figure out a way to hire the pain in the ass out, give'm their Mad Minute fix and retire on the proceeds. He's heard Tahiti's nice.

He adjusts a bit, and goes none too quick about undoing his bootlaces. So he's managed to get halfway to making his cock settle the fuck down and maybe give some blood back to his brain by the time Rachel's bare feet arrive at his in his severely limited field of view, her toenails painted a vibrant lapis blue with like little sparkles in it, and ruin all that effort in a heartbeat.

The thing is, Tim's always had kinda real good recall, details and shit, and he's used to that being sometimes blessing and curse all at once. So it's not like it's unprecedented to find himself both loving and hating all these private, personal glimpses of herself that she's been giving him lately. How as a kid she dressed up as Whitney with her sister, and she can't stand Harrison Ford, and that she is no-joke gunning for Chief of Chicago--that shit can be innocent and simple to just love, knowing about Rachel as his partner.

But then, there's the fact that she's ticklish behind the knees. There's the knowledge of the tattooed swirl of colors and lines of her hummingbird in flight, living in his head in its precise placement under her waistband--right there under her casually mismatched sleep gear, tonight, when he's trying to make himself forget the secrets of how hot and sweet and soft and wicked and teasing she is in bed--and now, these dainty pretty toenails, normally hidden away under her stylish but practical boots...And which, not two weeks ago, were stroking teasingly over his naked calf in the dark, right before she took him in hand to personally guide him in a tutoring session in between her legs, and then he went on to make her come three times in a row and he can't conceive of a better way to ace a final exam ever. So...now he has a helpful extra detail for _that_ memory.

He's pretty clear he's making a last-ditch attempt here before he has to abandon all pride and just beg her for mercy, when he jabs his chin in the direction of her toenails. "Comes from Afghanistan, originally. That blue. Ground-up lapis lazuli. Mined in the northeast for millennia--used to be, ultramarine was one of the rarest, expensive pigments in the world. Before they learned how to synthesize it chemically, of course."

"Is that right."

He is now outright stalling before he has to take his second boot off and look up at her, and there's a laugh in her voice that's making him real aware of how the last time he babbled at a pretty girl was middle school.

"Uh huh," he grunts, giving up and pushing the boot off with his socked foot. "These days there're other mines for the stone, in like Russia and Chile and even here, but most of it's still outta Afghanistan."

She's just waiting, silent, and he's not even smart enough to close his eyes, traveling up every last inch of her smooth naked legs, the bombshell way her hips taper down to her feet, and nip in to her waist. Her shorts outlining the sweet v-line valley of her crotch. The small perfect palmfuls of her breasts, with her nipples cresting points into the ribbed material of her top. The delicate shining cross, its chain tracing a decorous line over the way her skin gleams deeply in the low golden light, that tiny dot of the clasp on one side of her neck, nestling in chaste and intimate like a kiss against her clavicle.

His tongue has licked out to his lips, wetting them before he even realizes it. Maybe, closing his eyes was never possible in the first place.

He reaches her face, familiar and stunningly beautiful at the same time, framed by that tidy corona of bright patterned cloth, looking down at him amused and exhausted and still miffed, and he physically cannot make himself look away.

"That's fascinating," Rachel murmurs, eyes locked with his, and she lifts a hand, and when he doesn't move a single muscle, combs it into his hair at his temple. The graze of her fingertips on his scalp sends tingles all the way down his spine, pulling tight at his groin, and his ass is making a slow slide back even as she sways forward, all the way until the backs of his calves hit the bed, giving the best possible base of support for her straddling first one knee then the other on either side of his hips and putting herself on his lap.

The whole time, she doesn't look away. "And is it uncomfortable for _you_?" she asks, as she widens her legs and rocks her hips forward and presses her soft, hot pussy directly on the ridge of his cock.

Tim shudders a sigh out of his whole entire chest and lets his eyes fall shut, nodding. His thumbs are skimming gratefully up along the outside of her thighs, catching at those fuzzy hems delineating right around where her legs become her hips, and her warm hands are in close on his bare shoulders, lightly, either side of his neck. "It's gettin' pretty bad," he acknowledges, in a voice that's scraping at his lungs for help, and she gives him another hot shivering little circle of her hips.

"Hmm," she says, continuing to rock on him, gently grinding still more of those harsh breaths out of him in the silence of the room.

He can't even open his eyes now, like he's superstitious like he's never ever been, like if he looks it'll all just vanish from his grasp like the kind of dream he hadn't had in too long a time, even as his thumbs push in under the sides of her shorts, swiping deeper at her hips moving on him. "Don't stop," he whispers, and feels her, mercifully, press down a little harder.

Then Rachel leans foward, resting forearms against his chest and her fingers curling into his nape, and his hands have already left her shorts to encircle her waist when she nuzzles against his ear. "Tell me you carry a condom around in your wallet."

Tim knows there's meaning to that question from her. He knows what that meaning is--and yet, his head is filled with her compact warm weight against him, the humidity and scent promised under her layers of material, the soft pressure of her heat applied to his cock with a lazy, enveloping rhythm that makes virtually any other thought impossible. He is, meanwhile, _excruciatingly_ aware of the tiny stutter of her hips when she gets her clit angled right, the way her want moves her on him. There's a groan in him, somewhere, his forehead falling to the line of her shoulder, and the nudge of her chin, and a reminder, and a mindless nod into her neck by way of answer.

And her teeth, just sharp enough on his earlobe to send sweetness spidering through him, and then her voice, replacing them, so much sharper and sweeter. "Get it."

His hands convulse on her as he's finally jolted into getting with the program. His breath heaves hard. " _Fuck_ , Rachel."

He feels the caress of her smile along his cheek, an inhale and a little sigh against his jaw, then back up to his ear. "Yes, please," she says, ladylike as hell.

He has to--he _has_ to--Jesus, fuck, _please_ , he--pulls back, enough to see her eyes, because he needs to, roll this layer of protection on between them as much as any rubber. "Rach..." because he already knows, swallowing, that their one-off ain't becoming _just_ a two-off, not like this, not a goddamn chance, "I'll--I'll do this--"-- _fuck_ , will he ever do this, Jesus, "I'll be your rebound, fuckbuddy..." and then his lips pinch at the flicker of memory from earlier today, fuck he's a jerk. "...stress relief. Whatever we're callin' it. Whatever you want." She's lifted her eyebrows appreciatively, and he doesn't think she gets it, just how much he means that if it means he gets to have more of, oh, god, _this_. But here's the thing. "And I will do everything I can, not to...fuck you up, at work. But--I can't promise--"

\--He can't _promise_. He knows, just how important her career is to her, and between an interoffice rumor mill the likes of which could've rivaled his gran's knitting circle for gossip, and the prejudices Rachel already, always, has to deal with, even one misstep could threaten it. Could even ruin it, for her. He's not sure he could live with it, he did that to her just to get his rocks off. And--she's his partner. Not all the time, but enough that it's stuck, even before she said...all that stuff to him, other day in the car. He can't let her down like that. He _won't_.

Rachel has gone still on him, studying him, those big liquid outrageously pretty eyes lowering to his mouth in the tight helpless aftermath of his words. Then back up. Deep, fathomless pools, pulling him in, he's pretty sure he could drown in her if he let himself. He tightens his mouth even more.

She smiles. "I guess that'd be _my_ problem, then," she says, that eyebrow of hers rising tartly, and when his mouth falls open in protest he finds it suddenly clamped over by her hand.

His eyes have widened in a tiny bit of shock, up into hers, the flexing of her fingers upon his lips.

She tilts her head for a moment, eyes half-lidded at her muzzle of him, and Tim's never been into that kind of thing but now her slow, considering bite of her bottom lip has his cock gone so hard it's painful. It's not entirely a conscious thing when his eyes narrow to slits and he makes a grab for her sensational ass in retaliation, with a pointed squeeze, and discovers she fits just beautifully in his hands, just like this, her trapping his cock down, bathing him in her damp heat. It makes her flutter her eyes back, rub herself more firmly on him with a pleased little moan low in her throat, and he doesn't know anymore _what_ fucking thing he'd been trying to communicate, or possibly even what plane of existence he's on.

... _Except_. Her using his line against him doesn't change the fact that him potentially failing to give her multiple orgasms _does not compare_ to risking the path of her entire career. His mouth works against her grip, but Rachel only clamps down harder and shakes her head. She's so close over him she could start making out with the back of her hand if she wanted to, and then, holding his eyes, so steadily and so sure, she tells him, "I trust you, Tim."

It shuts him up like her hand never could have. He can only stare at her as she smiles down at his expression, loosening her fingers and tracing them over his mouth with so much undisguised warmth and affection and he can't move, he's aching, all over everywhere, like he can't even breathe. "And the rest? Is _my_ call," she finishes, cupping his jaw in her palm, brooking no argument. "Okay?"

It's not, and he's not, and he doesn't think he ever will be again. And he's nodding. "Yeah," he gets out, eventually. "Okay."

"Good," she murmurs, crossing her hands down at her waist, curling her fingers into the material of her top and she's watching him track the progress of it as she draws it slowly up her body but he can't take his eyes away for a second, he doesn't care how desperate that makes him. "Because I am just too tired to pretend I don't want this," as she pulls it off over her head, a stretching arch of her back that puts her bare breasts just inches from his face. She discards the top and strokes his cheek, physically lifting his face back up to meet her eyes again, teasing, easy sheer pleasure in her smile down at him. "And way too tired not to let myself have it."

"Good," he says, husky, and he can't even really remember what they were talking about, just that it's _good_ , and he's not so much of a hopeless dumbass he doesn't know it when he sees it.

His hands are already smoothing up her sides, greedy for her skin, when she breaks off, and gestures him back with her chin. He obeys, shuffling his butt up the bed until he hits the ludicrous profusion of pillows that are piled against the headboard as Rachel shimmies easily out of her shorts and panties.

She's too quick for Tim to point out he really doesn't mind helping taking her clothes off her. She's already climbing back onto him, saddling up over his thighs just as bold and fearless as Glenn Ford in all his movie cowboy-bandit glory downstairs, and immediately starts frisking his pockets. And yeah, getting the condom had been Tim's job, and yes, the angle they're at for her trying to get in and worm his wallet out of his pocket is next to impossible, but since it has her leaning forward, the tiny dangling wink of her cross doing everything in its power to point out the lower, equally gentle bounce of her tits as she practically shoves them back in his face, he's finding the situation to be proceeding pretty well.

He fills his hands with the perfect curves of her ass again, and just lets himself put his face to her sternum, right there between her naked breasts, fuck, she smells so _good_. Tim can't figure how it is he forgot how women smell this good, or maybe it's just Rachel, the elusive scented feminine things, and the clean warmth of her skin, the hints of her sultry moisture below, tantalizing. He squeezes her ass gently this time, learning the way it makes her fingers go distracted at their task as his knead the sleek strength of her body, and he noses at her inner slope of what are, clearly, divinely-blessed boobs until he's got her just giggling, almost silently, and tugging impatiently at the rim of his pocket.

"Little help here?" she prods, and they've kept themselves mostly close and quiet in the house's suburban nighttime hush, but now it's something closer and quieter, some kind of secret soft and shared thing just between their own two bodies, and he nuzzles her shamelessly.

"Mm-mm," he refuses, making her giggle inaudibly harder. He presses his grin to the pillowy movement of her flesh, lets his mouth fall open, a wet slow drag, over, round, the drawn-up tightness of her small dark areola grazing against his lip--

The sound he makes when his mouth loses Rachel's breast, and gets her hand back instead, is _not_ quiet, so it's probably a good thing it got duly muffled.

"Tim. Just--"

He gets one of his hands around and under her in swift-acting response, palming the sweet ache in her flesh that his is straining painfully against his zip to satisfy. She gasps, rocking against his touch, flush with need and drenching his skin in it. It almost sets him moaning it's so good, god he's glad he's not the only one who gets turned on so fucking hard and ready with this, whatever it is they're calling what they're doing.

Then she swivels her hips down, sharply trapping his wrist between her thigh and his with her weight, trying to glare down at him--when she's the one gagging him. _Again_.

He glares right back, and crooks his fingers--the angle's awkward, and uncomfortable, but _some_ people are prepared to make that kind of thing work. Testing just _how_ ready Rachel is, fuck, so ready for him to slip inside her, where she _wants_ him, where she's soft and tight, so hot and wet for him that he can feel it in his dick.

It makes her groan, almost angrily at him, and good, fuck, he's angry too, frustrated and somehow so full of tenderness for touching her like this, the heart of her pleasure. It's almost unbearable, thudding through his veins, like he'd burst with it, like he's never fingered a woman before in his life and he'd put it down to what she did with his hand on her pussy last time but the truth is, even before that, on his couch, when she first let him touch her and just make her feel good, the sounds she'd made, squirming, the way she'd said his _name_...

" _Tim_ ," she hisses, scoldingly. She doesn't let go of his mouth and he doesn't stop, pumping his fingertips the slick half-inch of movement he can manage inside the clasp of her body. Her hand on him spasms and he gets a pinch of her flesh between his teeth and he nips, reveling in her undisguised shiver of arousal. "Can we--just. Get on and get off--without all your _twenty-three positions in a one night stand_ , tonight? Think you can manage that for me?"

Okay, Tim's not exactly sure what the hell that's about, and for the record he remembers pretty much two positions that night, but however interesting it sounds, he shelves it. The mixed pleading and sarcasm in her tone finally gets what working brain cells he has left to remember that she's had a really, really long day. Not to mention exactly how it was he learned the way she snaps into defensiveness, when she's feeling vulnerable like this.

Something in him softens--not his cock, he's pretty sure he can't get any stiffer, especially now with the flood of memories of that first time, the way she took him, used him, hard and fast--and he's right there, whatever she wants, using his mouth to nuzzle willingness into her palm.

Rachel searches his look, which makes it into a smile that he nuzzles against her hand, too. He winks, because she wasn't ready for him to concede so easily, and he likes being able to surprise her.--Though, not nearly so much as he likes being able to pleasure her, so he withdraws his hand from her and helps her up, and soon as she releases him with enough space to work with, he has his wallet out, his pants open and out of their way in record time.

The condom's a recent replacement--there was that real strange moment, their previous time, when he realized he couldn't remember when he'd put the old ones in his wallet, who knows how long since he'd worked up to any use for them. It's that apathetic dry spell that now feels like a vanishing dream, bizarre and eagerly forgotten in how badly he wants this as Rachel takes charge of the condom. The touch of her hands at his cock is hitting him headier than liquor, the sound of their panting breaths mingling, then the smooth flex of her hips and ass under his grip as she rises on him.

" _God_ ," he whispers, shuddering, she's got one hand clamped around the back of his neck for balance, knees spread while she presses the head of his cock against her clit with her other hand, her head dropping back as she rubs them together.

At that she slowly focuses down on him, and smiles, all lazy and reckless, rubbing some more before guiding the tip inside of her. He can feel the quiver of effort in her thighs to hold herself up, lifting her hand to his shoulder for more support, nails biting right in to help her make hot slick tiny circles there on him, making him hiss. Making her smile grow. Fuck, the sting and the tease is incredible, his balls aching, he can't get enough of the way she grabs on, the way she leaves marks on him, she's got him so good and by the look in her eye she knows it, she's _exulting_ in it.

Tim's half sure it's a challenge for him just to drag her right down by her hips and he's tempted as hell to oblige her. But two can play at that game. And he really wants play at that game.

He gets a hand around to the front of her pussy, crooking the side of his finger against where she's got them just barely joined, holding her eyes as he makes a long, deliberate stroke _up_ , drawing a lewdly, blatantly suggestive line up the soft curve of her belly, up just under her navel. He raises his eyebrows, stepping up with a lazy challenge of his own. "You gonna fuck me or what, sweetheart?"

Rachel's eyes blaze, the hard rake of her fingernails down his chest, across his nipple that almost for a moment blots out the feeling of her widening her thighs, a shove of her hips helping gravity take her down him at speed. They're both of them gasping, her hands clutching at him hard and his grabbing around her body where she's landed against him, the hitch of his chest against her breasts, her cheek burrowed to his.

It takes him a few moments before he can turn his face to her, to ask if she's okay, if it was too fast--when she lifts her head, nailing him with a look and a hard fuck-thrust of her hips...and a gentle but unmistakable fuck- _thump_ of the headboard against the wall.

They both freeze, eyes locked in the total silence of the house, before the laugh is gasping up out of him, and she plasters her hand across his mouth yet again with a hissed, " _Sh_!" It doesn't help that he can feel her body quivering against--and around--his with little gasps of suppressed laughter too. She's squirming, trying to clamp down harder on him what seems like all over, and _he's_ beginning to feel some kind of lightheaded hysteria. "Oh my God, oh my _God_ shut up--"

"Oh my god _you_ shut up," he snickers, her moving fingers on his lips tugging the words all over and her laugher coming from even deeper in her belly, while the movements of her body finish getting her settled down around him, all the way, and he just wraps his arms around her as though holding on for dear life and laughs harder and silent-er.

"Oh, you, _shush_ ," she growls, tapping an almost-slap across his lips. She wriggles around, so hard it nearly sends him cross-eyed. "Stop!"

Which is warranted, since his wheezing grunt had reached a volume that actually threatened to carry, above the carefully clandestine level of their whispers, to what someone not standing on the other side of the door with their ear pressed to it could detect. And really not fucking warranted, since she's doing her level best to either kill him or twist his cock right off--

That's when Rachel straightens back up, with his sleeping bag that had been all rucked and half-sliding off the bedspread in her hands, and a bright look in her eye. It takes Tim a second to recover enough to follow, she's planning to pad the space behind the headboard with it. The one thump by itself had been innocuous, quiet enough not to draw attention in the night's stillness--as long as it stayed just one thump. A determined, rhythmically pounding bed against a wall tells a different story altogether...one he's suddenly desperate to hear. Just as soon as conditions permit, with her, specifically. Very, very specifically.

He had been about to suggest a change of position, which she apparently was really serious about not doing, still seated deep, so deep, on his cock, as she concentrates in a way that's kind of honestly adorable on his sleeping bag, folding it vertically down the middle. So, instead, he takes her ass, grinding her deliberately on him--the angle of his sitting position under her doesn't give him the leverage to fuck upwards, especially not with the fancy pillow pile at his back, but he's resourceful too, he can work with that--angling her until her swollen, hidden clit's pressing well to his pelvis. He keeps it up until she can't help but give him her attention, and he smiles when she does, and reaches up, tugging her down to him. She lets him, wary and curious, the rough scratch of his sleeping bag scrunched thick between them, the soft taut fabric of her hair wrap under his fingertips, the warm bare velvet lobe of her ear as he tilts it to his mouth like it's a secret.

Tim nips gently at her earlobe like it's a warning, and whispers in her ear like it's a goddamn promise. "One of these days, Rachel? You and me are gonna make a _racket_."

Against him Rachel squeezes up, all over, breath heaving in her lungs, her fingers clawing at the sleeping bag, her toes curling at his knees--and the sharp clench of her pussy along up around every inch of his cock. He swallows his groan as best he can when she sits up fast and leans over to one side, starts jamming the doubled-over end of the sleeping bag between the corner of the headboard and the wall. It's a reach for her shortass arms but she, it seems, is determined to make the awkward angle work without moving off him one single micrometer, and he couldn't swear it but _god_ some of those grasping, stretching, _working_ muscles inside the depths of her feel like they're on purpose, little corkscrews of silken movement, gripping on his cock tighter the more harsh his bitten-low moans become.

But by the time she's begun to right herself, wriggling herself on him back towards the middle and dragging the drape of the bag up over him, reaching behind his head to tuck it in with her virtuous necklace and her tits swaying right in his face again, he's decided how he can be of help to her.

He slides the broad pad of his thumb down her mound, down her enticing triangle of tight dainty black curls luring him right to where he wants to go, where she opens, nudging in to get her clit directly, and rubs his encouragement and wholehearted support for her endeavors.

Rachel gasps, hitching _beautifully_ on him, then grits her teeth. She gives him a whack he suspects would have been harder if she weren't worried about the noise, and he stops trying to resist temptation and gets his mouth on one of her breasts--as their lord and savior clearly intended, amen.

Not that he didn't catch the hints that she still considers them doing their fucking on some poorly defined version of hooker rules, but for now there's a lot he can do with his mouth that's not strictly kissing, so, while her hands are too self-appointedly occupied to grab his mouth away again, he aims to find out how far he can take that. He figures if she really wants him to stop she's a big girl who's fully capable of using her words, even at a whisper.

Which is a real possibility, so he's taking no chances, because he _wants_ that taste of her nipple all small and dark and sharp--and hell, if JC really is pulling duty out there somewhere, Tim'll take it as a personal favor. Rachel's whimper when he seals his lips around it, her eager press when he sucks it into his tongue's exploring caress, her ragged breath and instinctive canting of her hips as he thumbs her clit just the way she likes it, her distracted hands fluttering at the back of his head as though to pull him closer, Tim thinks he can all take as good signs...and when no bad ones follow, he groans into her soft sweet body, lifts and spreads his hand at her back to anchor her nearer in, and pretty much lets himself stop thinking altogether.

Definitely not thinking...as he tugs, light, his teeth on the bud of her nipple, flicks it roughly with his tongue...about wrapping his mouth, slow, slow, around to do the same to her tight little clit pressing so hotly into his touch...because that's just gonna make him blow, and he can't, he _will fucking not_ , he's gonna be hard inside her until she's fucked every bit of pleasure she wants outta him.

She's got back to it--the sleeping bag, that is--but seems her focus is kinda getting scattered around them, along with her little breathy, needy, _desperate_ sounds, escaping from her like a tight fistful of glitter, shimmering, shivering down all over him like it's his birthday or some shit. He grins into her, and then marks her for good measure, the glistening stripe of his saliva _so fucking pretty_ on her gorgeous skin he wants to paint her all over, and he blows softly on it and watches her nipples pucker up for him even more.

" _Hgnh_ \--oh, please--please--" he hears her panting, almost soundless, chest jerking in at him as he starts worrying at the other nipple moving into range of his mouth, she's working her way across him and the headboard with an unflagging determination in spite of him that is getting him in a just _insanely_ sexy way.

He moans and slows and deepens his thumb on her even more, no idea if that'll help her, no idea if he wants it to. "Doin' great, sweetheart," he murmurs, snickers as she spares a hand for a second to score silent lines of punishment and promise into the back of his neck for his teasing. Lighting his skin up, rasping fire down between his shoulder blades, her elegant understated manicure put to good, vicious use, assuring him there's more to come. "Yeah. Oh, yeah, come on, sweetheart. That's the way, you got it..."

Her high, feminine little growl alone almost makes him groan. "I hate you, ah, _oh_ \--" she hisses as he crooks his thumb and sees what he can do with the side, the blunt wiggle of the contours of nail and knuckle, she's leaning over so far he's mouthing at the side of her ribs, his hand splayed firm across her back doing as much to support her position as hold her close to him, nearly done, "I hate you, oh, oh-- _oh_ \--I hate you--"

"Long as you fuck me," he assents cheerfully, and then Rachel's up, teeth damn near chomping on his ear, until she can hide the laughter grumbling in the back of her throat, quivering down her spine and around him, and for one wild, infinitely greedy moment all he ever wants is to stay held there under her, just like that, for the rest of time.

But before she can leave a mark Tim can't conceal or account for that's consistent with his duties in the last 24 hours--not without inventing a torrid affair with his _other_ colleague, a story unlikely to solve many problems, while creating a lot more--she releases his ear, draws up her spine, braces herself on his shoulders and slams her hips forcefully down into his.

The thrust was purely experimental, assessing her work for sound. The fierce, internal concentration narrowed in her eyes is not on him at all, not him or his thumb or his cock, just her head tilted slightly to the side, surveying the perfect silence of the headboard and bedframe and anything else that could give their position away. A second hard thrust, the doublecheck, and all he can do is settle his hands on her waist and watch, the calculations tracking nakedly across Rachel's face, perched up there on him and mentally calibrating the results to her intention to fuck him through the--thick, expensive, squeakless--mattress.

It is maybe the hottest fucking thing he's ever seen.

And then she turns all that focus, all that purpose, back down on him. She stops, takes a fleeting breath as she looks down at him fallen helplessly straining for her, and whatever she had been intending to do with him--tease, retaliate, torture--what she does, instead, is lift her hips, just an inch, and then come back down on him, slow, and _hard_ , and oh, _god_.

Tim can't tear his eyes away from her face and he's not sure he didn't give that up out loud, but her eyes on him glitter up hot, and she licks her tongue to unfairly moisten her lips she's not going to let him kiss, and she lifts and does it again.

That time, he definitely groaned it out loud. And she does it again. Slightly higher, slightly faster, slightly _more_.

"Shit--Rachel..."

The words come out hoarsely inaudible, and it's not from the need to keep their voices pitched low. Rachel smirks, the clasp of her thighs at his hips, her hands at his shoulders, moving one of them up the back of his neck again, nearly making him shudder just from that. Massaging his nape under her grip, up into his hair, almost possessively, playfully soothing as she builds it a little harder, a pumping wave of motion to drive their hips. Watching him, holding on, inclining her head until she's put her forehead to his, as she strokes her tight, hot pussy steadily up and down on his shaft. "How's that, _sugar_?"

She's teasing but she's as breathless as he is, she's as wound up as he is, there's no hiding it like this, this dangerously naked place right here between them and fuck, he doesn't _want_ to. "Yeah," he drags in air, and she does too, automatically, the partnership of their harsh panting mingling together, warm and in sync and right on the edge. He squeezes at her hips, his words coming out of him as vital, as fervent as their shared air is, encouragement and absolutely _wholehearted_ support. "Yeah, Rachel, fuck me. Fuck me."

She groans in reply, high and raggedly half-stifled, her body adjusting, slightly, the tensing of her thighs the only warning he gets. The powerful arch of her spine, her eyes closing and hands spasming, she's already got the measure of it and only speeding up on him, thank _Christ_ , no more excruciating drawn-out build up needed. He can feel her already, tightening, the inside secrets of her oncoming pleasure. The way he knows, the way he's felt her, over, and over, when he made her come, _over_ , and _over_.

Her fingers are tightening up on him too, on his skin, at the scruff of his neck and _she_ knows, too, just how to take him like this, how to move her body on his. For all the flirting, and the teasing, Tim didn't realize just how starved he was to have it again--to have Rachel take all that pent-up _everything_ she's got and just let herself go on him, unrestrained need and effort and more, riding him hard in hot pursuit of her climax.

It's only the quickest random flash in among the jumble, connected notions, caution still lingering somewhere on his mind--but the sudden thought of assholes at the office _talking_ about her, pawing over her in rumor, over the idea of her like this, jams through him in cold rage. The violence of his reaction rips the breath right out of him, just a split second but so acute, it's a level of possessive protectiveness he's only ever known under actual hostile fire, his hands clenching on her hips and then her eyes are flying open. Locking in on his and wiping everything else out, nothing but her eyes, beautiful and wide and _startled_ in the breaking instant of her orgasm--and she's desperately burying her teeth, and her wild overtaking cry, into the absorbing pad of muscle at the crook of his neck.

He's already coming, couldn't have stopped himself the moment she looked down into his eyes and came, but the deep glow of pain bursts through the bliss of release, too, whited out and groaning for her. Muffled against her, he hopes, enough to catch his sounds too even as her mouth on him eases and her arms tighten, wet breaths and little moans between them because Rachel keeps moving, chasing sharply with her hips to milk out the aftershocks of her orgasm, rippling around him for what seems like forever. Each movement more and more erratic until she finally stills, letting it subside, wrapped around him, her face tucked against the pinging heat of her bite mark on his shoulder.

For a minute, Tim can only hold her as close as she's holding him, getting his breath back, the thud of his pulse receding, before he recognizes the signs--she's beginning to doze off, on him, again. Resolutely tuning out the little part of his brain that just wants to let her stay exactly where she is, he helps her shuffle off, getting the extra pillows out of her way and the bedding arranged to some degree of modesty and comfort over her, considering she's either already sleeping or completely ignoring him on the concept of putting her clothes back on.

He's quick about tidying up--his soiled undershirt can hide the condom, until he can dispose of it elsewhere, and he dons a fresh tank top, along with his tags, and heavy pants remaining on--but by the time he lies back down behind Rachel, staying on top of the covers, it's still unexpected to feel her right hand, sleepily but deliberately groping back for him in the dark.

The discovery that she's a snuggler, a hardcore snuggler, was still not as surprising as learning how fucking good it felt to have her cuddled against him like that--all night long, no less. Not even the suspicion that, if she's not yet fully asleep, she's close enough to it and operating on habit as though he's her ex-husband, stops Tim for even a second. He's not proud, he wouldn't even be here if the man hadn't been moron enough to let her go and Tim'll take it, curling at her back, allowing her to arrange them into full spooning, which she does with a commanding expertise that is impressive for someone not even half awake.

His arm tightens around her, pulling her as deeply flush into the curve of his body as the covers between them will allow. The soft exhaled sound of her sigh follows like a reward, the relaxing of her body into him, and total sleep...and he lets it be the fault of his own last slide into sleep when he bends his mouth down, finding her neck, letting his lips press in instinct what could categorically only be considered a kiss against her skin.

Some three hours later he wakes up, a few minutes before his alarm is set for, which is pretty normal, to an uneasy tickling in the back of his mind that something is off, which is not. The pang at disengaging from having Rachel's sleeping warmth in his arms is lost in the quiet uptick of adrenaline, tripping through his bloodstream, instantly alert and listening in the silence as he dresses fast.

He doesn't unsnap his holster before he gets out into the hallway, with the door closed behind him--he's not so uneasy, yet, to let that sound potentially disturb Rachel's rest, not when the difference between the feel of the presence of a threat is so tellingly distinct from the feel of something _missing_ \--and he goes down for his shift on guard duty to find he's got no one to relieve.


End file.
